


Family Recipes

by DoubleNegative



Series: The Locker Room: Check Please! ficlets [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Ficlet, Future Fic, M/M, Nostalgia, Originally Posted on Tumblr, relentlessly self-indulgent fic premises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6866398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleNegative/pseuds/DoubleNegative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I don't think I've ever written anything so shamelessly, plotlessly fluffy. In other words, hello, <em>Check Please</em> fandom. I am happy to be in you. I've got more in the pipeline, except with smut and a little bit of plot to balance out the feeeeeeeelings. In the meantime: this.</p><p>The Pyrex pattern in question, "Friendship":<br/><img/><br/>(I'm a Butterprint kinda girl myself, but this one seems more Bitty and MooMaw's speed. I spent way too long contemplating that question.)</p><p>If you're so inclined, you can tumbl through fandom with me at <a href="http://www.onethousandhurrahs.tumblr.com/">one thousand hurrahs</a>.</p></blockquote>





	Family Recipes

The last box is heavy, and Jack doesn’t miss the way Bitty winces a little when he sets it down too hard on the counter. There’s a fine film of dust on the top of this box, as though it was packed long before the rest of the boxes. He steps aside to let Bitty unpack it, removing newspaper-wrapped packages with something approaching reverence. Jack drags the recycling bin over, and then settles down on the bar stool to watch while Bitty unwraps everything, slow and careful.

It’s a matching set of mixing bowls and casserole dishes, orange and red and yellow, in a stylized bird-and-flower pattern. Bitty wipes out each piece with a dish towel before setting them in a row along the counter. Jack picks up the nearest mixing bowl, milk-white with a little pouring spout on each end, small enough to fit in the palms of his hands.

“You didn’t have these at the Haus,” he says. “Are they new?”

Bitty shakes his head as he unwraps the next piece, a square orange dish with a glass lid. “Old, actually. This was my MooMaw’s Pyrex set, from the seventies. No way was I gonna bring that to a frat house.”

Jack chuckles, and sets the little bowl down carefully. “Smart,” he agrees. The set doesn’t look like it’s nearly fifty years old; the colors are still vivid, the rims smooth and undamaged. “I like these,” he says. “They suit you; they’re… bright.”

Bitty smiles and ducks his head, his hand lingering over the pattern on the casserole dish. “I helped MooMaw mix up a lot of recipes in these. That’s her apple pie I make, you know. I mean, I added the maple sugar part, but... My mama bakes, of course, but MooMaw’s the one who really got me started.” His smile grows fonder as he remembers. “She liked to say that she taught me everything I know, but not everything _she_ knows.”

Jack smiles, too. He’d like Bitty’s MooMaw, he thinks. He’d like just about anyone who made Bitty smile like that, who looked at Bitty and saw _him._

Bitty pulls the last piece out of the box--not Pyrex, this time, but a cast iron pan, glossy black and heavy. “This was hers, too,” he says. “I probably should've brought this to the Haus. Not quite as good as a fire extinguisher for chasing off drunk football players, but pretty impressive anyway.”

Jack blushes, remembering the animation with which he’d told that story at Epikegster, sure he wanted to impress Bitty but not yet clear on _why_. It seems so obvious in retrospect. “Well, this apartment is a football-bro-free zone. I guess you’ll just have to cook with it instead.”

“I’ll make a frittata,” Bitty says. “Enough protein even for you, Mr. Zimmermann. I started making those with MooMaw when I was four.”

“You should write a cookbook. You know, to go with your vlog,” Jack says, suddenly struck by the idea. And he’s never really tried food photography, but…

“ _Eat More Protein: Cooking For A Hockey Team_ ,” Bitty says. “Kind of a niche market, maybe.”

“You’d be an expert on it, though,” Jack says. “I was thinking more of your grandmother’s recipes, though? The stuff you cooked together, all those little tips and tricks, like when you soften the butter in a warm glass, you know?” Another idea strikes him, and he isn’t sure if it’s presumptuous or not, but-- “I’ve got my mémère’s recipe for tourtière--um, meat pie--scanned somewhere. If you ever wanted to try other family recipes.” Jack has a sudden vision of some future Christmas Eve, Bitty standing at the counter, preparing Mémère’s tourtière in MooMaw’s mixing bowl, and he wants it so badly that for a moment he can’t breathe.

But maybe it’s all right, maybe Bitty sees the same thing, because he puts down the bowl in his hands and steps toward Jack, eyes shining, mouth soft and fond. “I can’t imagine anything better,” he says, right before he stretches up to kiss Jack, and Jack really doesn’t think he’s talking about meat pie.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I've ever written anything so shamelessly, plotlessly fluffy. In other words, hello, _Check Please_ fandom. I am happy to be in you. I've got more in the pipeline, except with smut and a little bit of plot to balance out the feeeeeeeelings. In the meantime: this.
> 
> The Pyrex pattern in question, "Friendship":  
>   
> (I'm a Butterprint kinda girl myself, but this one seems more Bitty and MooMaw's speed. I spent way too long contemplating that question.)
> 
> If you're so inclined, you can tumbl through fandom with me at [one thousand hurrahs](http://www.onethousandhurrahs.tumblr.com/).


End file.
